JDRF Advocacy is excited to announce our newest social media neighborhood, Instagram! The Instagram community might not be new to you—perhaps you’re already there—so it will be that much easier for you to find us. Follow us at @JDRFAdvocacy.

Every social-media platform has its own purpose, and here at JDRF Advocacy, we try to make advocating type 1 diabetes (T1D) research as easy as possible. The goal in our office is to break down as many barriers as we can between you and national policymakers. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to stay educated on T1D research progress and have your voice heard in Washington and beyond. That means that we come to you. There are JDRF advocates all over Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, blogs, and now Instagram, so Instagram, here we come!

We’ve grabbed our cameras, and we are ready to bring JDRF Advocacy to you through photos.

Did you know that every second, Instagram users perform 575 likes and leave 81 comments? We like you, and we hope you like us, so we want to show you! By being on Instagram, we know we will get to know you better! You work hard each and every day, experience highs and lows; some days are better than others, and at the end of the day, we want to see what you are going through, so we can figure out how to make advocating a cure easier for you.

Sure, you might be thinking, why do they want to see my photos? Maybe you post photos only of cute cats napping or what you ate for dinner, but guys, get this, we want to see that. We want to see you. We want to see what you are doing and how you are living each and every day with T1D! So if you post a photo you want us to see, make sure to include our handle, @JDRFAdvocacy and/or the hashtag, #JDRFAdvocacy.

Albert Einstein said that “Creativity is intelligence having fun,” so later this year, we will have an Instagram contest. That is all I will leak right now, but to stay in the know, make sure you are signed up to be an Advocate and follow us on Instagram so you are the first to know when we launch the contest.

Until then, remember: “Life is like photography; we use the negatives to develop.”